Welcome to Conejo Joe's Marathon Training and Running Blog. This started in April 2009 when I decided to start training for the inaugural Santa Barbara Marathon. Since then I've run several marathons and a number of other local races, while highlighting and babbling about a variety of things running-related in here, including training specifics, race reports, dealing with injuries (and I've had plenty of them). disappointments, successes, local races and so on.

I've been running since 1993 and have logged well over 50,000 miles since then. With over 30 marathons and a personal best time of 2:35 many years ago at the Los Angeles Marathon, I have a few things to say about running. My hope is that these posts provide you something of benefit, be it useful advice for your own training, a grin or two, or perhaps some motivation.

Good fridge or bad fridge? Maybe good fridge as it forced me back to visit my chiropractor.My training has been hampered for several months now due to a problem with my right hamstring that I tweaked at at 5K race in April. Additionally, I kindly yet ignorantly decided to help a friend lift a refrigerator into a truck without wearing some type of lower back support. The combination of the two left my walking like a zombie right out of Night of the Living Dead a few weeks ago. As a result, after a long hiatus from chiropractic care, I paid my favorite local chiropractor, Dr. Stanley Jensen of Jensen Walkin Chiropractic in Camarillo, a visit.

The first issue to resolve was my back. There was a delayed reaction between the time I helped with the fridge and the following day, when I felt the lower back "go out" (technical terminology). When I blamed my friend for my back ailment, he mentioned perhaps it was the two hours of swimming and messing around in the pool with the kids that did it. Nah. It was the fridge.

As is usually the case with my chiropractic experience, the day after my initial adjustment is often worse. I'm in more pain. I have less flexibility. I'm more miserable. But having gone through this cycle for so many years now, I know that the pain and suffering is part of the recovery process. Kind of like the day after the marathon, which is usually the day that I'm at my peak soreness.

So after my initial adjustment on Monday, by Wednesday my back was back to about 60% normal at my second adjustment, and on Friday, back to 90%. That was two weeks ago. Last week, after resolving the back issue, the goal was to remedy my nagging hamstring issue. I actually can thank my friend who asked me to help move the heavy refrigerator as the back spasm it caused forced me to finally get back to my chiropractor to resolve the chronic hamstring issue that wouldn't go away!

I pretty much run through all pain, unless it is practically impossible to do to, like last year, two weeks prior to my Malibu Marathon, when I developed a sharp pain in my lower left calf halfway into a long run. It the pain is sharp I stop running. If the pain is dull, yet nagging, I stil run. That's the mode I've been in since mid-April. I can't run fast and I can't run much more than an hour due to the annoying pain.

My hypothesis as to the cause for my injuries is often wrong. I thought I had strained my hamstring muscle. Nope, Jensen indicated it was a nerve issue, of which I cannot recall the name of the nerve he mentioned. He's resolved some extremely chronic, recurring issues for me in the past and I trust him to make the right assessment. Whatever he's doing now, it is very slowly...but surely...getting a little better each week. So I'm hoping to be back to running with a smile on my face soon.